Use of the Internet is growing in popularity due to the ever-expanding availability of information that is accessible on-line through various search tools, such as search engines. Across a local enterprise and remotely over the Internet, computer users are faced by having to sort through an overwhelming amount of information. The Internet is fast becoming the primary information search tool for obtaining information about products, places, people, etc. Unfortunately, the Internet is also quickly becoming a casualty of its own success due to unmanageable amounts of available data and the inability of users to receive desirable search results that are of efficient use to the users.
One problem associated with Internet search methodologies is the undesirable volume of search results obtained through a seemingly directed search. The amount of information available on any particular topic can be overwhelming to even the most seasoned Internet searcher. Typically, search results are filled with voluminous information that may not be appropriate for the search context desired by the searcher. Further, the searcher may desire certain information types over others. Certainly, it is a disadvantage to the searcher to have to sift through volumes of search results that seemingly do not pertain to the interests/desires of the searcher. Accordingly, tools such as search engines and document management systems can exacerbate the problem by pushing greater and greater amounts of information to users' desktops, creating the sense of being overwhelmed by data. Further, it is recognised that current search technologies are reactive and as such require a user to stop their current task and interrogate a data source to access information.
Further, adding to the “information chaos” is the fact that many of today's computer users are working on multiple, often dissimilar projects, and the ordered and optimized access of the user to relevant information stored in their computers (in relation to their current project), can be problematic. This lack of organizational capability can significantly detract from a user's (e.g. lawyer, accountant, consultant, educator, doctor . . . ) ability to efficiently work via their computer with information that is related to their current project. Common questions related to information disorganisation on a user's computer are: “Which relevant documents were on the desktop?”; “Which email threads are part of the project?”; “What web searches and results were within the project?”; “What documents, presentation, data, emails, pictures, videos were part of the project?”; and “Which files were on the desktop system, a server or in a document management system?”. One solution to this organizational problem is for the user to manually create and manage a number of directories and folders for related information. However, the nature of this type of organization is that any desired changes require much manual effort on the part of the user.
A further disadvantage of current search technologies is that multiple searchers search in isolation, even though there may be many searchers currently searching for similar subject matter (e.g. cheap trip to Florida) online. Accordingly, the multiple searchers are unable to leverage each other's time spent on the task of finding the similar subject matter.